Many sketchlings

[SpaceJelly]

Great use of line and colour here! Your sketchbook has a graphic feel to it.

Keep 'em coming!

Cheers! I'm trying to find a nice balance between graphic and painterly. Probably expecting a bit much there! I'm torn which way to go because I like graphic but I love painterly. So for now I'm hacking away at both

I took what LutherTaylor said and I've been trying to do some studies. I took some photos from Morguefile & desaturated them and painted them whilst squinting, which isn't too hard for me as I can just take my glasses off and I'm slowly getting it! Normally I hate doing landscapes and the like but I'm kinda enjoying this. So a fat thanks to all of you.

Anyway here's the pix.

[luthertaylor]

Hey hey! glad to see you have applied what I mentioned! and already I see big change in your studies. Don't forget the other half of the tip (practice painting grayscale from coloured images) when you start getting confident in rendering grayscale to grayscale.
whilst doing these studies as well don't be afraid to try out different brush presets on the typical round brush. play with the 'scattering' and 'spacing' sliders, play with the shape of the round brush via brush preset as well (i think it was that tab) all three of those would help tremendously with rain and snow. they also wouldve helped on the rocks and the water as well but that's me being nit picky

I also notice previous comments. It's partially good focusing on many things as once to build up a general understanding and work process, but this method is THEE slowest at showing progress if you wish to draw via memory alone. thing of it like stats for a RPG character. certain areas of study equal these stats :anatomy, colour, light and shadow, perspective etc. once you gather enough experience points through hard battle (lol) you level up ONE of these stats. Art wise, through repetition of studying you gain enough experience to level up. it is usually by studying intensively and repetitively one of the aspects that you level THAT aspect. by studying all things at the same time, you gain experience but not enough to level up if that makes sense. making matters worse, each of these aspects have their own areas of focus lol. like anatomy. studying ANATOMY alone won't suddenly make you a master at drawing a variety of POSES, nor make you a master of RENDERING THE HUMAN IN VALUE. (capitalised on words that are studies of that aspect). also same thing as well, you can practice rendering humans as a whole intensively, but you can hone in on areas you want to develop first like the face, or the torso, legs. divide and conquer ma dear!

ahh jeeez it happened again, my excessive impulse to share has made me spam an essay lolol I'm gonna shut up now, but before I do. If i haven't shared before.
check out posemaniacs.com for a widddddde range of poses to draw from. gotta drill those poses everyday. then there is also pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php
for practice on rendering. They also have animals there as well.

Best of luck! will be in touch

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks Luther, the RPG analogy is really good! I know exactly what you mean. It's kind what I've been applying to my anatomy studies. For instance at the moment I'm focusing on the arms (big weak point there) and a few months ago it was the torso. It's why I'm kinda limiting my landscape studies to once or twice a week. The rest is all anatomy, poses & the like. I think doing the photo studies will help my perception of value a lot though. Once I've mastered (ha ha) people I'm then going to focus on enviros more. I guess I don't want my enviro skills to be at level 1 all the time.

Thanks for the advice & I really don't mind the essays they are very helpful. I do use Posemaniacs some but I haven't heard of Pixelovely I'll deffinatley be checking that out.

[SpaceJelly]

Howdy folks. I've had today off work, so it's been a day of study & practice. Trying to get my head around arms and drawing with my Bamboo and here's a few digital studies. One day I'll get round to scanning my drawings. One day.....

[Nianto]

those latest studies are nice! bridgman references?!
maybe you should try to use harder edges in your environments. try it ) and keep on uploading! let's have a nice and fluid start

[SpaceJelly]

those latest studies are nice! bridgman references?!
maybe you should try to use harder edges in your environments. try it ) and keep on uploading! let's have a nice and fluid start

Thanks! They're actually from Michael Hampton's figure drawing book, which I found the easiest to get to grips with.

Thanks for the pointer on landscapes. I think I'll try more angular, edgy brushes too.

[SpaceJelly]

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM BAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCK!

With plenty to post. Got a shiny new Intuos yesterday so I've been giving the thing a test drive. It's worlds apart from my ancient Bamboo One.

[luthertaylor]

Hey space cadet!!! lol ;P welcome to the gang of intuos users!!!
lovely new stuff you have! and you are brave for doing that architecture study! I'd run! RUN FOR THE HILLS! lol
by the way what is your set up for intuos. intuos settings wise and photoshop wise. as in have you set your brush opacity to pen pressure, etc and have you set your buttons on your wacom to hotkeys you often use, like undo, increase/decrease brush size, colour picker etc.
makes the motion of digital drawing much smoother and less interaction with the keyboard.
all the best!

[SpaceJelly]

Cheers Luther I have to admit that I was questioning my own sanity whilst starting those architecture studies, but once I got going it wasn't that bad. I've spent a while tweaking my intuos & settings to my liking and all is gravy. I love being able to change brush size, zoom, undo and pan the image without faffing with the keyboard.

It's been a while since I poked my nose in here and I've managed to get a lot done in the time I've been away. Here are some of the juicier pieces of work. I also have a big pile of more boring drawings like hand studies and whatnot here: http://community.imaginefx.com/forum...ad.aspx#383550 because I'm too damn lazy to upload.







until next time folks.

[SpaceJelly]

I've been woefully neglectful of this thread since CA rebooted. I'll try to buck my ideas up and post here more often. For now some more drawings.

[RyanRyan]

very nice, lots of issues here, but nothing a whole heap of drawing won't fix. keep killing it

[SpaceJelly]

very nice, lots of issues here, but nothing a whole heap of drawing won't fix. keep killing it

Thanks for the encouragement. My perspective skills are in dire need of attention at the moment. Good job I like drawing.

[Xelar]

Agreed with the perspective.
I can actually see that you are really trying with the anatomy but the perspective is holding you back.
I had the same problem, I thought anatomy was my problem but it really was putting the anatomy into a perspective grid.
maybe look at some photos and try to find the horizon and perspective points ( not just buildings but also humans/vehicles...)
It really helps you get a sense of space

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks Xelar, I'll remember that about humans & vehicles. I'm slowly begining to understand perspective but it's gonna take a lot of work for me to get a handle on it. Like you say gaining a 'sense of space' will be crucial. I've been doing a few still lifes recently to build on my observational skills too as this is an area where I really fall down. Hopefully with persistance I'll get it.

[SpaceJelly]

Here's a WIP that I've been struggling with for a while now. I normally go straight into using colour with my digital work but I had it suggested to me that I should try working in greyscale and the add the colour after. But I seem to be having problems with adding the colour. I've tried doing it a few different ways but it seems to end up looking false, especially when I use different layer blending modes to overlay the colour. I was wondering if any of you guys could lend me some advice. I was hoping to go with warm colours and cooler shadows.






Thanks muchly in advance.

[SpaceJelly]

This weekends efforts. Trying to wrap my tiny brain around thinking in 3D and improving persepctive. Going to attempt to draw cars next. Anyone know any good sources of reference bar Auto-Trader




]

[BlackDelphin]

I see lots of progress in these two pages, great job! what can i say? thank you for sharing.

[thewandererjourney]

great light

[SpaceJelly]

I see lots of progress in these two pages, great job! what can i say? thank you for sharing.

Thanks very much. I'm glad others are seeing progress in my work as I don't often see it myself. Wood for the trees and all that.

[ebi]

Eventhough I can't give you any advice, I just wanted to stop by your sketchbook to gush at your work.
It looks like you're doing pretty well

And I definitely like the creatures you come up with. I could picture some of them as designer toys. At least, that's the vibe I get from them.

Keep it up! And good luck with the perspective! If you're going to draw cars, you might want to look at Scott Robertson's book "How to Draw Cars the Hot Wheels Way " (or any of the tutorials he does), a lot of people seem to recommend it.

[SpaceJelly]

thanks Ebi. I'm happy you like the critters. It'd be really cool to see some of 'em as toys. Deffo something to think about in the future. I'm sure I remember hearing that they do 3D printing in my area now. Hmmmmmm.....

I've been watching a couple of Scott Robertson's vids on Youtube & they are pretty informative. I haven't heard of the book though, thanks for pointing that out. With a name like "How to Draw Cars the Hot Wheels Way " it's got to be worth a look!

Thanks again for stopping by.

I really should scan this weeks drawings in but that means moving out of my seat. Nah!

[SpaceJelly]

More sketches from this week.

Need more practice on arms & legs. And drawing 3D objects. I bought 'Sketching, The Basics', which has really helped my understanding so far. The drawing of the car is actually a toy car that I have as I thought it would be better starting by drawing from life. And I don't own a real car so that had to do >.< I didn't to too well drawing the damn thing but I think a few things clicked into place during the process.











Next week I'll be doing more arms, legs,full body poses and gestures. I suck at gestures and don't really get what I'm doing. I'll also be drawing more objects and working on my perspective.

[SpaceJelly]

And some digital stuff from before that I forgot to post. Random stuff really.

[rumpenstiltzkin]

hey there! what a wonderful sketchbook! i like your colors alot and so much variety in characters!

thank you so much for stopping by my SB!

[Clur]

Whoooa is your stuff ever looking great. You've improved leaps and bounds since you started working on volume, and your lines are always really energetic and expressive. I love your insect studies especially!

[BlackDelphin]

Clean work on the lines once more, it's a constant treat for my eyes, thanks!
The car studies look ok, perhaps try doing it again and see what can be done better
in the process. I usually see progress this way as well.

Also I like how you construct with red or other colour pencil underneath.
Other than that, I think your colour schemes could use some more working on,
study light and colour more.

Cheers!

[SpaceJelly]

thanks so much guys!

BlackDelphin - you're right about the colour schemes. I plan to work that out once I've gotten to a comfortable point with my drawing. I thought it would be better to fix the problems with my drawing before moving more of my focus on to colour. I don't get too much time to work on my art at the moment, though I have been chipping away at colour off and on, it just feels like I'm polishing a turd when moving on to colour/light before I have vanquished my drawing demons. Perhaps these feelings are unfounded. I think I could squeeze in some colour time at the weekends.

Here's this weeks efforts. I decided to focus quite a bit on how the neck & head attach to the torso as this seems to be something that has been baffling me for some time. Same with how the arms attach to the torso. Making a few studies has helped but I reckon I need to spend more time on this. Also included are some random doodlings because all work and no play makes Rachel go crazy.

[luthertaylor]

You have improved vastly! Long time, hope you are well! keep at it lady!

[BlackDelphin]

Great! Weekend fun fun colour time haha
And I think you're taking colours a bit to serious, just have fun with them!
Use photoshop and try tings out, use a colour wheel and see where it goes.

What I also like to do, is look at varous paint textures or other images that have
an interesting colour scheme and remember to try such a combination. You can look
and apply right away as well. Do what has to be done in the beginning, until you feel
it is more comfortable.
And the trick with comfort zones is actually that we always have to be out of them to
improve. I myself have said what you have said, but I came to the conclusion that
not comfort, but exploration brings us further in our mission.

ps. i like that first car, sexy contrasting values. more art, more! looking forward to it heh

[SpaceJelly]

Great! Weekend fun fun colour time haha
And I think you're taking colours a bit to serious, just have fun with them!
Use photoshop and try tings out, use a colour wheel and see where it goes.

I think that is the first time I've ever been accused of taking something too seriously! Thanks for the tips, sometimes I need to remember that I actually enjoy the act of drawing and exploring.

Anyway, this weeks efforts. I've returned to drawing hands and trying to find a way of constructing them that I gel with. At the moment it's a bastardized version of the Loomis & Michael Hampton methods. Not totally sure it's working >.< I still don't completely get doing the finger tips in perspective but I'm trying to work it out myself rather than jumping straight to the books/Google. It at least gives my brain some exercise during a dull day at the office.

Also very much liking the new look CA.org